Wireless communication is the transfer of information over a distance without the use of electrical conductors or wires. This transfer is actually the communication of electromagnetic waves between a transmitting entity and remote receiving entity. The communication distance can be anywhere from a few inches to thousands of miles.
Wireless communication is made possible by antennas that radiate and receive the electromagnetic waves to and from the air, respectively. The function of the antenna is to “match” the impedance of the propagating medium, which is usually air or free space, to the source that supplies the signals sent or interprets the signals received.
Antenna designers are constantly balancing antenna size against antenna performance. Unfortunately, these two characteristics are generally inversely proportional. To make matters more difficult, consumers are now favoring cellular phones with internal antennas. The ever-shrinking size of cellular phones leaves little space inside the phone for these antennas. To add even more complexity to this communication problem, phones and other communication devices are needed that offer communication over multiple frequency ranges, requiring multiple and differing antenna elements within the device. With the reduction in antenna element real estate, communication performance suffers.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.